6 Must-Haves to Stop Losing Your Customers’ Attention

A successful and enjoyable shopping experience doesn’t just come at the point of sale. Shopping strategy can be different for different customers. Some people hunt for bargains or the perfect shoe, others want latest items. Knowing how to engage customers, with all their varied tastes and preferences, is the challenge that all business face.

The longer you can keep your potential customers on your site, the likelier they are to buy.

1. Seductive product images

Images help customers see your product at work and imagine possibilities with it. Not everyone knows how to pair ham with grilled asparagus, or how to look fashionable in a denim jacket.

In Nasty Gal’s old days on eBay, founder Sophia Amoruso called thumbnails “the smallest real estate on the web” – “A Chanel jacket has a $9.99 opening price. It could sell for just that or for $1,000. You have to prove it is worth more.” And she did, by selling a thrift-store neon sweater for $550.

Now, Nasty Gal is still obsessive about its product images – According to a Forbes interview, when a wrap dress was getting just one sale a week, Amoruso insisted it be put on a popular model. The dress became a top seller at 400 buys a week.

2. Compelling brand stories

A brand story can potentially increase product value by over 20X.

Significantobjects.com was a study done to quantify the impact of a story on a brand’s bottom line. Researchers bought thrift store items at $1.25 per piece and composed stories for each of them. The products sold on eBay for a total of $8,000. Check out this monster toy:

“Long ago, Flakumas, a stegosaurus, lay with Bardouf, a basset hound, and they begat Glumphakel, a bulbous-beaked baby, their first and only child.”

Example #1: You could sell beard care products, or you could assemble a Beardsmen’s revolution.

Beardbrand is not even about beard care products, it’s about a revolution started by a frustrated and dedicated beardsman. Some choice quotes from Bandholz’s story:

“The shaving fad is ending now, and Beardbrand will be leading the charge.”

“We were tired of beards being left to kitschy, cheap products.”

“There is negative terminology used towards beardsmen that still lingers in our culture. For instance, the term “clean-shaven” should be “completely-shaven” or “beardless.”

“We can’t do this alone, and we need you to help us change society. Connect with us by joining the mailing list below, and most importantly – beard on!” (Nice link to their call to action!)

Example #2: Zappos doesn’t sell pizza, but they have a great story of how they delivered it.

Zappos likes to differentiate itself on its service – and it spends a lot of time articulating its dedication to customers: “We just care about whether the rep goes above and beyond for every customer. We don’t have scripts because we trust our employees to use their best judgment when dealing with each and every customer.” (Tony Hsieh, Huffington Post)

But Tony Hsieh also knows how to tell a story that leaves an impression. In a piece for the Huffington Post, he recounts in detail a story of the time a woman, on a dare, drunk-dialled Zappos trying to order pizza late at night. The rep on the line was very helpful, and that caller became a customer for life. Tony Hsieh doesn’t want you to start calling Zappos for pizza, but he does have you interested in a brand that you wouldn’t check out otherwise.

3. Juicy content

Content is absolutely critical for SEO.

Shopify explains why content is king – “Google is getting better over time at focusing and understanding the content of a page. Back a long time ago all you had to do was fill out some meta-tags, fill out your title tag and your site would get ranking. But now Google is very good at evaluation.”

Write content that would inform, excite, and inspire your target customer – not just on your store site, but on your blog as well.

Example #1: Beardbrand documents the “bearded lifestyle”.

I’ve already mentioned Beardbrand, but felt that its zine deserves special attention. Not only does Beardbrand feature Instagram pictures of beardsmen, tagged #beardbrand, it also produces its own zine, titled “Urban Beardsmen”. Beardbrand is literally converting hesitant beardmen to Beard Pride through its irreverent content.

HelloFlo know their readers well – not just any women who experience periods, but women who are passionate about self-care and body positivity. And its content reflects the kind of readers it wants to convert.

4. Personalized store experiences

Personalized content does 42% better than static content.

According to a 201https://prnt.sc/qm7fkb3 survey by Adobe and Econsultancy, 52% of marketers consider personalized content fundamental to an online strategy (27% disagreed). SalesBenchmarkIndex, a successful customer of Hubspot, wrote about personalization and its effect on SBI’s conversion rates.

Here are a few examples of ecommerce sites delighting customers and helping them find the product they want:

Example #1: Shoedazzle first gives you a style quiz.

That is the first thing you see when you land on Shoedazzle’s site. During the quiz, you pick your favorite shoes/style/outfit out of three options, and that helps Shoedazzle get to know your taste.

After you take the quiz, you’re redirected to the store, where you’ll learn that you have an hour to use your “VIP offer” of a 75% discount and free shipping. You also get to live chat their stylists.

Since customers would naturally be wary of making a $100 decision before trying it on, Warby Parker’s virtual try on fits its glasses over a picture that you upload. It’s a lot of fun to try out, even if you’re not serious about buying right now. Personally, I could spend hours putting different pairs of glasses on my profile picture.

5. Site search (that actually works)

Site search delivers 1.8X more conversions than websites themselves, and 13.8% of the revenue.

In the same study by Econsultancy, 30% of visitors use the search function on an ecommerce site.

Yet most ecommerce sites provide dismal support for site search.

Baymard found that even the top 50 US ecommerce sites aren’t user friendly – 60% don’t support thematic search queries such as “spring jacket” or “office chair”, and 60% don’t support symbols and abbreviations, resulting in users missing out on perfectly relevant products if searching for inch when the site has used” or in.

As I type “Burgandy” (deliberately misspelled), ModCloth displays all the burgundy-colored dresses, so I can see what they’re called and what they look like.

A very helpful search bar – and it helps that ModCloth titles their products for easy search. Dresses that are burgundy colored actually have “burgundy” in their product name, and clothes that are office-appropriate also have “office” in their names. I don’t feel like I have to bounce to Google to help me out.

Remember, product recommendations only help if they’re context-appropriate.

Amazon is the best-known example of aggressive product recommendations.

For example – if I’m looking at an acoustic guitar, I’d like to see other acoustic guitars. It’s not helpful to see “other customers who bought this also bought…this guitar case”. The appropriate context for guitar cases is after the acoustic guitar has been added to my cart.

Example #1: ASOS’ “buy the look” takes the hassle out of assembling an outfit.

Aside from Amazon’s “also bought” is the “complete the look” commonly used by fashion ecommerce sites like ASOS.

When you’re viewing a product, ASOS recommends accessories and shoes to complete the look. You can see how all the components of the outfit fit together, and it’s extra easy to purchase the entire look. This drives up ASOS’ sales because it eliminates a lot of guesswork for customers who welcome a little assistance.